Name: Seventies food.
Age: Long past its sell-by date.
Appearance: Alternately pale and lurid.
What are we talking about? The foodstuffs of yesteryear.
Can you give me some examples? I wasn’t even born in yesteryear. Spam.
Spam is email. Long before spam was email, Spam was a meal.
What sort of a meal? It’s like ham, but it comes in a tin.
You’re joking. How do you fit ham into a tin? The ham in question is conveniently tin-shaped.
Give me another example. Packet trifle.
I can’t imagine what that meaningless pairing of words refers to. It’s a trifle – sponge, custard, cream, jelly – but it’s in a packet. You add water, milk and sugar, and it sort of comes to life. Doesn’t that sound comforting?
It sounds disgusting. Thank God these terrible and obsolete foods have been consigned to history. Oh no, they haven’t – they’re back!
What do you mean, back? Seventies foods are booming, according to a new shopping trend study from the Co-op. Packet trifle sales are up by 738% compared with last year, with canned ham up by 179%. Even Smash sales have increased by 59%.
And what, pray tell, is Smash? It’s instant mashed potato – just add boiling water. It’s amazing!
Is somebody having a weird retro party somewhere? No, the rise in 70s food sales is happening across the nation – custard powder, up 336%! Canned corned beef, up 90%! Tinned pineapple slices, up 343%!
Where are all these new customers coming from? Have they risen from the dead? Like everything else these days, it’s to do with lockdown. “With an increase in at-home dining occasions during lockdown,” says the Co-op commercial director Matt Hood, “customers turn to traditional recipes and pub classics to keep them comforted during the uncertain times.”
I thought we were all rediscovering the joys of culinary invention during lockdown. That too. “We’ve noticed that shoppers purchased six times as much fresh meat,” says Hood.
So what you’re saying is, everybody is buying food. Yes, and they are buying more of it locally. High-street stalwarts including Co-op and Iceland have seen sales rise by more than 30%.
How will this nostalgia for 70s food survive once everybody has tried it again? People are buying it – nobody said they were eating it.
Do say: “I miss the simple tastes of childhood: a trifle packed with emulsifiers, modified maize starch, whey powder and anti-caking agent.”
Don’t say: “Lunch is canned ham in a tortilla wrap – I call it a spam folder.”
